


On rapid wings I cleave the sky

by pearypie



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Affection, Character Study, F/M, Grace Lives, Longing, Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-31
Updated: 2016-05-31
Packaged: 2018-07-11 08:21:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7040584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pearypie/pseuds/pearypie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This temporary separation would give him the necessary cause—would bring back the ruthless gunman of France who knew execution as well as he did a racetrack. There would be payment received and for Grace—for Charlie—that payment would be collected in blood and body. A pound of flesh for every day he had to live without them. </p><p>Grace and baby Charlie in Dublin, Tommy in London. (And all this longing.)</p><p>(A Grace lives fic.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	On rapid wings I cleave the sky

The cool night air felt strange on Grace’s cheek. Usually, Tommy would have wrapped his arms around her slim figure and whispered innuendos of a most devious nature—the sort that made ladies blush and maidens swoon but Grace, despite her angelic appearance, gave as good as she got. In truth, it felt strange to be in Dublin again, seeing the rolling verdure hills and sun-swept plains. At first, when she had first been relegated to Ireland after the bullet careened into her collarbone, she had been delirious and pumped full of anesthetic. She hadn’t realized that Charlie wasn’t in her arms and when she next awoke, situated safely in a seaside cottage owned by some rank and file Shelby foot solider, Grace had felt an almost unbearable pain.

Tommy had left behind three letters—each four pages in length—expressing his regret and love. Intoned in the first two was an almost frenzied panic—the sort of crazed paranoia that could drive a man mad. It had been stifled by his icy control but still, Grace knew. _And after I’ve hunted down and skinned the bastard who dared injure even the slightest part of you, I’ll send Charlie right on up. You won’t be alone Grace—_ ** _you never will be._** The promise of her son eased some of Grace’s heartache but nothing could compete with her possessive longing—her desire for the husband who, to the outside world, was a vindictive and merciless troglodyte.

In private company, Thomas Shelby was a raconteur of sterling wit and warm affability and none knew this better than the woman who had pierced through the ice of his heart. She missed his soft caresses and playfully combative kisses for, even in intimacy, there was a streak of pugilist rivalry about him. The way his hands seemed to scour every inch of her body before cupping her face—her _angel’s visage_ as he called it—and gazing into her jade green eyes with all the intensity of a winter storm. There was a loving rigidity about Thomas Shelby that Grace didn’t think anyone could contest. Towards those he loved—those he cared for best—he became almost mercenary, possessing the sort of implacable ambition the extended beyond business and gambling accounts.

It was why he had sent Grace (once the bullet was removed and the doctor packed away) to Ireland until he had obliterated the looming threat of Russians and lamentable princesses. Already he had sent her a blade stained with the blood of Vincente and Angel Changretta. And though Grace knew there was a perverse depravity to all this, she appreciated his vindication all the same (like he knew she would). In Grace’s mind, she and Tommy were more alike in thought and procedure than man and wife should be—they were partners in the erratic storm of canonical business and deceptive illegality. For him, she would be interloper, agent, accountant, mercenary. Whatever he needed, she would detail.

She was a Shelby—an orphaned girl with sable and sins—and she was _loved._

It was only the piercing cry of their baby that alerted Grace from the seaside window. With hasty hands and quick steps, Grace closed the blue glass aperture and returned to the sanctity of the makeshift nursery, complete with a hand carved baby cradle and Charlie’s favorite stuffed giraffe. Exotic animals for an exceptional babe.

“Hush now.” Grace murmured with all the tenderness of new mother. She took him into her arms, marveling at how much he had begun to resemble Tommy. From his delphinium eyes to his dark hair, he had all the makings of a true Shelby—one even Polly Gray wouldn’t be able to dispute. “You mustn’t wake the merfolk, hm? The ones that lodge in the depths of the sea, residing in golden coral palaces and pearl draped finery. Mermen with strong, cobalt tails that glitter like sapphires and mermaids with hair as long and beautiful as water silk. Every color a different shade, every word a musical intonation.” She continued, the genteel lull of her Irish accent soothing the child’s faint cries. Like Tommy, Grace disliked purposeful puerility and thus spoke to little Charlie as she would an adult, using flowing, artful sentences to paint pictures of wondrous worlds beyond the shadowy abyss they were currently hiding in.

“How do you think they look Charlie?” She crooned gently, walking towards his nursery window, the crystal glass allowing the moon’s silver radiance to pour through. “Look at the sky—satin dark, hm? And do you see the moon?” Her eyes looked up and Charlie—dutiful of his mother’s word—mimicked her actions. “The night has made all the sea a Persian blue—royal and rolling, with frothing white foam and the low churning of the trough. All the merfolk, they swim beneath the depths in a calm, strange grace as they move from sinuous seagrasses of fern green to entire reefs of gilt pink, dotted with golden sea anemones.”

The baby cooed in Grace’s arms, delighting in his mother’s tale as he turned his gaze from the moon back to his iridescent mother. Dressed in a moon pale gown of diaphanous organza, she looked like Diana come down from the nightly heavens. Charlie’s fists, plump and soft, grasped at a lock of her sun gold hair, tugging on it with childish impatience.

“Sh, sh Charlie.” Grace tutted gently, shifting her son up so that his cheek pressed against hers. “Do you see that moon? That’s the same moon your father is gazing at right now in London. He’ll be standing by his bay window, cigarette on hand, and eyes of a faded summer sky. Do you remember your father, Charlie?”

At the mention of Tommy, baby Charlie squirmed impatiently—almost as if he expected his papa to materialize.

This brought a smile to Grace’s lips, softening the despair in her eyes. “You’ll see your father soon, Charlie.” She promised, heart fierce with Juno’s vow. “Soon, when those who dared oppose us are gone, we’ll go home.” She kissed the top of his head. “I promise.”

 

* * *

 

From the private study of Thomas Shelby—the Neo-Georgian masterpiece with its high arched ceilings and mahogany paneled walls—the businessman ut brigand stood with his hands in his pockets, a newly lit cigarette between his lips. He could almost smell the salt of the Irish sea, the faint hint of wildflowers that seemed to be his Grace’s signature combined with little Charlie’s powdery, infant fragrance.

 _Grace._ His _wife._ The woman who had taken a bullet meant for _him._

If there was ever a doubt that Thomas Shelby had a heart, Grace’s near death experience denounced that claim wholly and completely. To collapse onto his knees, words frenzied and begging, showed not the restraint of a mobster whose ornamental bride had been injured but the grievous suffering of a man in love.

To send her away had near fractured his slight heart but when he looked at her—so still in her unconscious state—and Charlie, rosy cheeked and innocent, he knew there was no other option. 

This temporary separation would give him the necessary cause—would bring back the ruthless gunman of France who knew execution as well as he did a racetrack. There would be payment received and for Grace—for Charlie—that payment would be collected in blood and body. A pound of flesh for every day he had to live without them.

_I’m coming for you, Grace. A little longer, love. Just a little longer._

**Author's Note:**

> \- title comes from the poem 'The Soul ascending into Bliss' by Alexander Hamilton (yes, the founding father who built America's financial system and restored national credit was also, in his spare time, a tremendous poet)
> 
> \- Juno: Roman equivalent of Hera, goddess of marriage and childbirth
> 
> \- ut: meaning ‘as well as’ in Latin
> 
> A/N: Grace has to be alive. She just has to be. Her ‘death’ was a melodramatic cliche unfit for a woman of her stature and the fact that she was shot in the collarbone? Please. 20th century medicine ought to have been able to do something about that. Until episode 6 says otherwise, I’m just going to headcanon that Grace is alive and being kept safe in Dublin (or maybe Wales or wherever) until Tommy has disposed of this season’s current lot. (I also headcanon that Grace is not only a superb singer but also a wonderful storyteller, imaginative and eloquent, telling her baby boy soothing tales of wondrous creatures from other worlds and beyond.)
> 
> Edit: Alright, thanks SK for breaking my heart.


End file.
